Brazillion Solar Roofs Program Off To A Bright Start In Sunny California.

[NNadir]

Without sounding sockpuppety, I think a bright, sunny, headline is an order for the spectacular good news about the bright sunny solar future in California.

...This year through mid-September, the PUC says, applications for solar incentives for projects that will represent 160 megawatts of power have been received. That compares with 198 megawatts of solar power installed statewide over the previous 25 years.

In all, the program has 5,109 applications this year - with more than 1,200 in August alone. That'll mean $320 million in rebates to homeowners and business owners.

Of those, residences account for 89 percent of the applications. However, the remaining 11 percent from businesses, governments and non-profits represent 87 percent of the total megawatts...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=edit&forum=115&topic_id=117809&mesg_id=117809

Let's see, a $320 million "rebate" for 5,109 applications. Um, doesn't that come out to $62,000 per system?

Oh well! It's worth it. Some of the practitioners of a brazillion solar roofs after all are on Walmarts, and really, really, really, really "Green" companies like that. And look at all that wattery! It's just watt the doctor ordered. A brazillion percent increase over the last 25 years, the last 25 years being that period during which solar energy was a big, big, big, big secret.

And of course, at $17,000 a pop after the $62,000 government rebate that comes out to only $79,000 per system.

That means that the whole megawatty system combined works out to $406,000,000 and let's not forget that our solaresty besterest betterily Greenpeace and RMI approved systems work an astounding 25% of the time, at least if we have a great fucking drought going on. That means that we can have this big, big, big brazillion solar roofs for a fabulous low price of just $8/watt, meaning it will only involve an $800 "investment" to light a 100 watt evil incandescent light bulb in El Cajon.

And at the spectacular great start of 5000 out of a brazillion solar roofs, we can expect to get to the first million of our brazillion in a tiny "just in time" 200 years, just around the time that climate change starts to be a little bit of a problem.

This is so mathy and sciencely that it sounds like it was written by a Republican looking for handouts for his pals and paid off buddies. Oh wait a minute...

Um, well...hmmmmm....

Look I'd love to sit and talk, but I need to go out for a spin in my hydrogen Hummer. Where the fuck is my personal GM engineer anyway?

[Trillo]

1. You make one most excellent point,

another curiosity is what is the breakdown between residence wattage and business wattage on the incentives used in actual installations? But how much of a big deal is that? Every installation, no matter the sector, represents that much less fossil fuel that needs burning, unless your district is getting it from nuclear or large scale renewables, and I'd really hate to calculate the various costs of the waste disposal with nuclear, and so, apparently, would the nuclear generators' financial folks.

I remember back, I think it was 1999, maybe 2000, anyway, I priced the total retail cost for a residential grid tie system (our house is less than 1200 sq ft, including the double car garage) that even in winter (northern hemisphere) produced a slight excess of electricity every month given our existing electrical usage, and its cost was right around $60,000 before any incentives at the time were applied.

So, I'm guessing the figures you mention should completely eliminate any cost to applicants, but that's not what you wrote. If they need to pay anything out of pocket for the system along with received incentives, then there's definitely some graft there.

---

BTW, I read your headline aloud to someone and they said you were an idiot. It's not a sentiment I share, but their confusion is understandable.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. No matter what *he* sounds like

there's just nothing like reading the posts and replies from those who drank the renewable Kool-Aid (as in, "It's solar/wind/hydro/fill-in-the-blank or nothing. Oh, and nucular is bad, mmkay?") come here and try to counter real facts, statistics and science with pure emotion absent all common sense. And I speak from experience because a few years ago I was terrified of nuclear anything.

[Bread and Circus]

24. Bullshit, you guys have no market cornered on "facts"...

you just ignore the bad shit about nuclear power and trump up its benefits.

Nuclear power has had a strong go since the 1940's and it still only provides a small fraction of the energy supply. And that's not for lack of trying, because their is a huge MIC interest in nuclear power. Frankly, it's just a bad way to go and the last 60 years of history has proven it.

I've been to the hospitals and clinics affected by Chernobyl and let me tell you that the true impact of that event was hidden. Please tell the child victims of that incident all of your facts. They have a few facts of their own.

[NNadir]

4. Solar energy is a toy for rich people. It is not an effective way to fight climate change.

It has never produced an exajoule of energy in a year and it will not do so.

I couldn't care less about people's solar toys, although I notice that any solar powered houses in Southern California that burn to the ground in the next few days - not that there are that many solar powered houses in California - will more than likely have failed to payback the greenhouse gases invested in their solar PV systems.

I have, in fact, spent years calculating the so called "disposal costs" of large systems - and they are trivial, particularly in the nuclear case. Solar is irrelevant to the nuclear case, because 1) Solar has not and will not produce an exajoule of energy. 2) Solar is now and always has been prohibitively expensive except for the richest 1 or 2% of the world's population and 3) Solar is an intermittant form of energy. 4) The waste profile of solar is unnoticable mostly because solar is a trivial form of energy.

In the last case, I have spent thousands of hours demolishing the anti-nuke rhetoric of people who cannot add, cannot subtract, cannot compare numbers (i.e. appreciate inequalities - something by boy covered in the third grade) and have apparently never bothered to learn even a modicum of science or open a sinlge piece of primary scientific literature about energy.

I have been, in an effort to confront the "big lie" approach to energy - a lie that is killing people in places like Germany, where coal and natural gas are being used to replace reliable and safe nuclear infrastructure because of vast public ignorance - found myself discussing the smallest and least reliable and most expensive renewable toy - solar.

The numbers are clear and unambiguous and irrefutable:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html

The solar subsidy is a subsidy for the rich - a particular element of the rich that feels pangs of guilt about being nothing more than lazy consumers. That is why rich brat scammers like Amory Lovins are able to reel in big bucks at the expense of poor people living in the low lands, because Lovins serves moneyed interests and only moneyed interests.

The external cost of forms of energy are well known. An important and growing disipline of systematics that is becoming increasingly elegant. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of scientific papers on this subject are published each year.

I don't know your "friend" from a hill of beans, but I know the type, the lazy and indifferent type who has never once got off his or her fat ass to educate himself or herself in even a cursory way, but still feels qualified to make outrageous statements on subjects he or she knows nothing about.

We have lots of them here. They are at the intellectual level of creationists. They start with an unsupportable thesis, and dance around like whacked out shamans trying to say that their thesis stands up to "scientific" scrutiny. The anti-nuke game is a religion. It is not just ill-informed. It is illiterate.

[Trillo]

5. Hey NNadir, you have a nice evening!

I don't know your "friend" from a hill of beans, but I know the type, the lazy and indifferent type who has never once got off his or her fat ass to educate himself or herself in even a cursory way...

Brazilian sounds like brazillion, they're homophonic, homonyms, "sound" the same. You think it's "uneducated" to have those two words read "aloud" or "verbally" to another and for them to think somehow that you meant Brazil is in California? It would be truly STUPID (worse than the insulting "uneducated") for my friend to not make the mistake provided based upon the information given to them.

http://www.brazilcalifornia.com/
The homepage of Brazil, California. Is this why you chose "brazillion" as your signature indeterminate number? "Brazillion" isn't in the dictionary, but "gazillion" is.

I was just making a joke, one that got your hackles raised! Cool your nuclear powered boiler with a heat exchanger, and dispose of that excess heat somewhere other than earth. No wonder the ice-covered poles are melting! You engineers forgot to pipe the excess nuclear heat off planet!

Oh, right, the sun heats the oceans much more than nuclear power ever will. <--- I can't even begin to imagine the fallacies in that previous sentence of mine.

Hey NNadir, you have a nice evening!

[Systematic Chaos]

7. It ain't got nuttin' to do with Brazil, CA.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokebushbrazilian.htm

Three Brazilian Soldiers
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.
Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

And then of course you have the "Million Solar Roof" initiative in CA, proposed by Governor Hydrogen Hummer.
That's where NNadir is getting these references, just to clarify.

[Trillo]

10. Thanks,

I had forgotten about that presidential brilliance joke.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

40. Don't be ludicrous, and don't be offensive.

I'm just going to bypass your offensive language and address your points. One, the total radiance of sunlight on the Earth has nothing to do with anything, because we need most of that to power our biosphere, and can't siphon it off for electricity. Second, he's talking about solar energy production, and you know that. Our technology for converting light into electricity is woefully inefficient, and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better.

"Any good energy scientist (and you are not one) will tell you that 100 square miles in Nevada has enough solar energy to provide our (meaning the US) electricity needs."

No, it doesn't. That's a complete myth, and not even the right myth. You're thinking of the old trope that an area 100 miles ON A SIDE would provide enough energy for the US. That's not the same as 100 square miles. In fact, it's about 10,000 square miles. But it's actually much worse than that, because if you run the math for watt-hours, you'd actually need an area 218 miles by 218 miles for all US power generation, since solar power only produces at maximum for about 6 hours around local noon.

"Is it cost effective? probably not right now, especially with all the coal in the US."

And not ever. To replace all of the US' electrical needs with solar would cost $1.8 trillion dollars. To do the same with nuclear would cost one sixth of that, $300 billion.

"2.) If we ramped up nuclear power the way the idiot nukies on this board want us to do then we would literally have a 12 year worldwide supply of the needed uranium. That means in 12 years, nuclear energy would run dry. Yes, I'm aware you would then want to salvage fissable material from salvage, the ocean, etc. But then guess what happens the price per watt goes up and you are in a death spiral as finding nuclear material becomes harder to get."

Your math is bad on this. For starters, you're taking known uranium reserves and dividing them by the increase in production. That's not the way it works, because "known reserves" only account for stuff that we've discovered so far. If you looked at "known reserves" of oil, we should have run out 30 years ago. Second, the oceans alone harbor enough uranium for centuries, which is currently recoverable at $100 per pound, which is trivial when factored in to the operating cost of a nuclear reactor. Only the most minimal part of the price is the cost of fuel.

"(meaning 10,000 nuke plants worldwide)"

More like 2,750.

[Bread and Circus]

42. I'll agree that...

it's a 100miles on a side (as opposed to 100 square miles). I spoke incorrectly.

However that's a simple and honest mis-statement.

This is vastly different than what Nnadir does, which is repeating out and out lies about how solar energy has never produced an exajoule. However, on this you give him a pass and tell me "Second, he's talking about solar energy production, and you know that." I'm just going on what he says, not what you are interpreting him to mean. And what he's says is not truth in the letter or spirit. Why is it that you take me to task on what amounts to a mis-statement but his outright repeated lies that have one aim, and that is to confuse.

Furthermore, why is it that my abrasive language is a problem when Nnadir is well known to be inflammatory and even his OP here is inflammatory tripe that essentially infers if you aren't pro-nuke you don't comprehend the basic facts about energy science. Even his toadies here acknowlege on a routine basis that he acts like a jerk but in your minds "it's ok because he's right".

Nnadir and the rest of you pro-nuclear folks act like a bunch of bullies spouting intellectual bullshit and I think it's reasonable for someone to take off the gloves and call you on it. And so I call you on it and get a few posts deleted. So what, at least the point remains and that is Nnadir and his ilk can't go around called people stupid, spreading lies, and have it go un-noticed. If anything he should have been banned from the boards a long time ago. I've been here on DU for 3+ years with well over a thousand posts up and numerous threads surfed. Hands down Nnadir and some of the of the other pro-nuke contingent in this forum are the biggest bunch of jerks on DU. I taken it upon me to alert the mods about Nnadir's tactics and gotten some of his posts removed but that does no good because the next day he starts a new thread based on nothing repeating the same crap he got deleted the day before.

The truth is that the sun provides a huge amount of energy that far surpasses any nuclear or fossil fuel fantasies. This is the inconvenient truth that the pro-nuclear union here wants to ignore and distort the facts as if solar energy and it's related by-products (water, wind energy) is trivial and could never meet demand.

As for your dollar figures, you are just cherry picking numbers because you choose to ignore all the externalities of nuclear energy procurement.

And it's not my math that warns of the dangers of running out of fissable materials in a short time frame if we were to ramp up to 10x the level of nuclear energy we use now.

Worldwide there's 437 nuclear power plants that supplies about 6% of the world's electricity. In your fantasies, you would need 20x or more than that just to meet the demand to stamp out fossil fuel based sources of electricity (keep in mind we use more and more electricity every year and it doesn't take long for the demand to double). I guess you can cut the total number of plants down by making the plants bigger, but that doesn't mean the total number still doesn't go up by magnitudes. And once you have all these fabulous brazillions of nuclear plants in such awesome places like aren't much different than the old soviet union that basically operate on the Potemkin principle then you have really fucked up our world for our grandchildren.

[TheWraith]

47. Well, there's a start.

"This is vastly different than what Nnadir does, which is repeating out and out lies about how solar energy has never produced an exajoule."

Actually, it hasn't. We're talking about solar power, not insolation/solar flux. You're the one manipulating the definition of "solar power" to include all light hitting the Earth's surface.

"Furthermore, why is it that my abrasive language is a problem when Nnadir is well known to be inflammatory and even his OP here is inflammatory tripe that essentially infers if you aren't pro-nuke you don't comprehend the basic facts about energy science."

I'm not pretending to speak for NNadir, but I can understand why he gets annoyed. A lot of people here who buy into the solar power mythos refuse to acknowledge the basic math of the situation. It's like that 100 x 100 miles myth, which is most often repeated as 100 square miles. It makes the whole thing sound simple without giving anyone an appreciation of the actual scope, starting with the fact that that would be 1000 times as great a production and deployment of solar panels as has been achieved in the last 50 years. Or the fact that you'd need much more area to provide for overnight demand, plus a way to store terawatt-hours of energy, something that no existing technology is capable of.

If I had three wishes, I'd certainly provide the world with a dense source of power that doesn't have the potential downside of fission. But right now, fusion is still at least 10 years out, and all the alternatives are either even more theoretical, or unsuitable for true mass production, which means that we're looking for the least of all possible evils. I would have a solution now, rather than wait another twenty or thirty years for something I considered more perfect and uncompromising, burning filthy coal and oil all the while. Europe knows this, which is why places like France have had pollution from their power industry drop by 80-90%, and greenhouse emissions by similar numbers.

"Nnadir and the rest of you pro-nuclear folks act like a bunch of bullies spouting intellectual bullshit and I think it's reasonable for someone to take off the gloves and call you on it."

I'd invite you to try and debunk anything I've said here using facts. Not myths, not random assertions. Show me the math that says we can produce enough energy with solar and wind to displace fossil fuels, within reasonable production goals, and store it, without the ecological disaster that would be entailed by having to cover 50,000 square miles of wilderness with solar panels.

"I've been here on DU for 3+ years with well over a thousand posts up and numerous threads surfed."

Lovely. Me too. Though actually, I've probably been here closer to 5 years.

"Hands down Nnadir and some of the of the other pro-nuke contingent in this forum are the biggest bunch of jerks on DU."

Then your exposure to DU is rather limited. We have far more than our share of jerks, and to be honest, many of them are on your side.

"The truth is that the sun provides a huge amount of energy that far surpasses any nuclear or fossil fuel fantasies."

And little to none of that is capturable with current tech. We simply cannot produce enough cells to generate the terawatts our planetary civilization requires, and even if we could, we'd be desperate for places to put them. Sure, total energy of the sun is huge. But most of what hits the Earth goes to supporting our biosphere, and of what's left over we can only harvest a tiny fraction.

"As for your dollar figures, you are just cherry picking numbers because you choose to ignore all the externalities of nuclear energy procurement."

Actually, no, I'm not. I'm going on established baseline figures for costs. It's not like this stuff is a mystery, or some giant secret the way it's portrayed: exact costs for maintainence, fuel, decommissioning, and storage are all factored into operating costs for a nuclear plant.

"Worldwide there's 437 nuclear power plants that supplies about 6% of the world's electricity."

Actually, that figure is 17%.

"In your fantasies, you would need 20x or more than that just to meet the demand to stamp out fossil fuel based sources of electricity (keep in mind we use more and more electricity every year and it doesn't take long for the demand to double)."

No, actually you'd need a total of about 2,600 plants, give or take, an increase of six fold. Minus the 437 already operating, that's 2,163. To build that many plants would cost around $3.3 trillion dollars, or as much money as the United States alone spends on oil in 44 hours. Think about that for a minute. For two days' oil costs, all global electrical production could be greenhouse free. Not to mention, those demand numbers are based on peak consumption--off peak, there would be tons of excess power to do things like desalinate water for drought-stricken areas and charge electric vehicles.

"I guess you can cut the total number of plants down by making the plants bigger, but that doesn't mean the total number still doesn't go up by magnitudes."

Magnitudes means orders of ten. Even doubling and then redoubling global electrical demand doesn't get you to an increase of even one magnitude.

"And once you have all these fabulous brazillions of nuclear plants in such awesome places like aren't much different than the old soviet union that basically operate on the Potemkin principle then you have really fucked up our world for our grandchildren."

You rode that one totally off the rails. I honestly don't know what you're trying to say--providing electricity for uncivilized places is bad and dangerous? Logically, the 1st world countries that built the reactors would have to supply staff to run them, since I doubt that Eritrea and East Timor are producing that many nuclear physics engineers.

[Bread and Circus]

48. dude, he said solar energy. it's as simple as that.

light, heat are forms of energy. they come from the sun. energy that comes from the sun is solar energy and there is an astronomical amount of energy that comes from the sun that equals roughly 487 exajoules every 8 hours and that counts for the fact that only half of the earth is exposed to the sun at an given time.

And yes, I understand that SOLAR ENERGY (the 487 exajoules every eight hours) powers environmental engine that makes the wind and the water of the world round and round. That's the whole point, because the energy can be extracted directly or through waves, water current, rivers, and wind, etc. etc. Even biofuels come from solar energy.

The great thing about this solar energy is that is essentially inexhaustible and in excess of what we would ever use, even accounting for industrial and population growth.

The whole issue is not the lack of solar energy, in all its various forms. Its a matter of capture of that energy.

And for that matter the sun is just a nuclear fusion reactor, so in that way I'm pro-nuke!!! I'd just rather use the biggest nuclear reactor in the solar system and capture its energy rather than try to recreate more dangerous less, powerful nuclear energy here on earth.

Basically the sun is like a nuclear reactor without the electromagnetic turbine attached.

I've done a lot of reading on this and outside of DU and the nuclear industry, there's just not a whole lot of scientists or environmentalists that support the man-made nuclear ramp-up that you guys would love to see.

I know you like to have the last word... so I guess it's your turn.

However, before you do, please read the original post and Nnadir's posts in general because it's not fair for you to put words in his mouth just to support a failing argument.

[Bread and Circus]

49. one more thing and it's on this point...

"And once you have all these fabulous brazillions of nuclear plants in such awesome places like aren't much different than the old soviet union that basically operate on the Potemkin principle then you have really fucked up our world for our grandchildren."

You rode that one totally off the rails. I honestly don't know what you're trying to say--providing electricity for uncivilized places is bad and dangerous? Logically, the 1st world countries that built the reactors would have to supply staff to run them, since I doubt that Eritrea and East Timor are producing that many nuclear physics engineers.

---

Don't act stupid like you don't know what I'm talking about, and that is another Chernobyl that will occur when you ramp up the number of nuclear plants. This is especially so in places that don't have the same sanctity for human life or the environment that would be required to be responsible with nuclear plants.

Chernobyl was mainly a result of human error, as a result of arrogance and hubris. The same arrogance and hubris that the pro-nuke contigent has to think they can actually safely harness the energy of the sun. The same arrogance that brought nuclear power into being in the first place. The same arrogance that thinks we can leave a world for our great great grandchildren that is poisoned with nuclear waste all for short term gain. All for 12 years of energy...

But really, has human nature changed since then?

It will happen again.

[Bread and Circus]

50. Oh here's another lie directly from you

"For two days' oil costs, all global electrical production could be greenhouse free."

You see, that's the sort of utter pollyanna bullshit you guys put out here.

Any reasonable person with two glions in their skull would not say that nuclear energy is "greenhouse free". By any scientific account I've read the lifecycle greenhouse emissions from a nuclear plant (including externalities) is about = to wind, joule for joule. This is FAR from "greenhouse free".

Is nuclear better than coal in terms of greenhouse gas? Yes.

Is it is "greenhouse free"? No.

Does the pro-nuke contigent on DU give cherry picked best case scenario, "lets build thousands of more nuclear reactors because they are supposedly 'greenhouse free'" tripe ad nauseum? Yes.

Does the pro-nuke contigent spread lies on DU to perpetuate the myth that there isn't enough solar energy to meet our needs? Yes.

Do they distort and play word games in order to confuse and create FUD about solar based sources of energy? Yes.

Do they fail to acknowlege any form of solar based energy other than traditional antiquated (and admittedly ineffecient) PV? Hardly.

Do they insult, inflame, and castigate anyone who does support their science-fiction fantasy of thousands of new nuclear plants as being stupid, uneducated, and scientifically obtuse? Yes.

Have they made the DU environment/energy forum a worse place or a better place? I know how I feel, and that's all I can say on that.

[madokie]

52. worse place

big time

[TheWraith]

53. Aaaand we're back to insults.

I love that you're still trying to twist the definition of "solar power" to include all solar flux hitting the planet.

"Don't act stupid like you don't know what I'm talking about, and that is another Chernobyl that will occur when you ramp up the number of nuclear plants."

Actually, no, I had no clue what you were talking about. As for accidents, every single day 437 civilian reactors operate safely. Even in Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Slovenia, and elsewhere. In the last week, there have been three thousand operating-days at reactors around the world. Nothing blew up. In the last year, there have been almost 160,000 operating days. Still, nothing blew up. Again, I have to bring up the analogy that if a wind turbine fell over and crushed a building, people wouldn't be calling for all wind turbines everywhere to be banned as unsafe. Chernobyl combined a grossly flawed plant design with operators who went way past human error into the range of whacking a sleeping bear with a stick to see what it would do. I doubt that we'll ever see that kind of combination again.

But if that's really a concern, let's ship out reactor crews along with the reactors. Certainly, a reactor operated by a trained crew from a developed country would safer than some less developed place continuing to rely on coal based fuel, without any regard for environmental standards.

By the way, nuclear power is not harnessing the power of the sun. The sun runs on nuclear fusion, not fission. And I also see you haven't run the math on the uranium thing, either.

"Any reasonable person with two glions in their skull would not say that nuclear energy is "greenhouse free"."

Really? Would you care to explain where, in the nuclear fission fuel cycle, carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases are produced? And I'm not talking about vehicle emissions from moving materials. That's not an intrinsic part of the process, any more than it is with solar power.

I will give you credit, though--you do understand that the definitions can be twisted to the point where there is no such thing as "greenhouse free" power. However, I consider that rhetorical hair-splitting, as well as inappropriately off-loading responsibility for things like fossil-fuel vehicles onto power systems they support. Wind, hydro, nuclear, and solar are all effectively greenhouse-free.

"Does the pro-nuke contigent spread lies on DU to perpetuate the myth that there isn't enough solar energy to meet our needs? Yes."

No myths are needed. Basic math knocks it down. Please run the numbers yourself. Gigawatt-hours of demand, versus actual production per square meter, equals necessary area. It's pretty simple.

I'm not trying to be a smartass here. There really is a basic and obvious problem with solar power that people here don't seem to understand or acknowledge. I'm not against solar power--I'd love it if it could provide everything we need. But it just can't. Not without us sacrificing most of Nevada.

"Do they fail to acknowlege any form of solar based energy other than traditional antiquated (and admittedly ineffecient) PV? Hardly."

Problem is, none of these supposed breakthroughs have panned out in a significant way. Sure, you can get a little more power per area, but nothing even close to being a serious high-end replacement. When was the last time that you saw a 2 gigawatt solar plant? There's only two reliable, large-scale greenhouse-free methods for generating the kind of power we need: hydro and nuclear. Hydro is wonderful, but it's limited by the number of dams we can build.

"Do they insult, inflame, and castigate anyone who does support their science-fiction fantasy of thousands of new nuclear plants as being stupid, uneducated, and scientifically obtuse? Yes."

Every word I've said here has been a simple fact. Please, if you have actual information, PROVIDE CITATIONS, or the math to back you up, or retract your statement. I have always provided both math and citations--nobody on the other side seems able to provide calculations that show how solar power can work. Frankly, I'm getting a little frustrated with being treated like a troublemaker or a sociopath when I'm the one with science on my side. You want me to go away: show me math that proves the practicality of solar power. Take an existing, wide-production tech, not some claimed breakthough that may not pan out. Use its real output, not theoretical numbers, and run that against US electrical demand to find out the area you need. Then provide for a way to store that energy for the 18 hours a day when the panels are not producing at peak. Show me the costs for this, and where to put it, and how we build it, and I'll shut up and leave you alone.

[skids]

2. The WalMarts pretty much have to be the ones to do it...

...it's not like the residents have any money. Part of the problem with not saving and living on house equity, other than the house equity suddenly disappearing, is that you have no resources to extract yourself from either peak oil, or environmental disaster.

Yay America! Well Played! Report to your nearest labor camp. Those that drew Waste Management Inc. in the lottery stop by the clinic tent and get your shots on the way.

[Kolesar]

6. Americans have *huge* amounts of disposable income to spend on stuff like renewable generation

We are the richest country in the world by far. Our consumers only have to take a shine to renewable energy novelties instead of 4WD cars, big TVs, or vacations to Mexico.

[Systematic Chaos]

8. I live in the midst of hundreds of thousands of people who can't afford ANY of that.

I'm in a huge area full of old apartments and run-down lower-middle class homes near the Las Vegas Strip. Maybe the people who live in the ridiculous McMansions around the outskirts of town could do the "renewable energy novelty" thing, but at least half of the people in my apartment complex (or most of the surrounding ones for that matter) don't even own a car of any type, let alone a 4WD one. And I think I've seen one large screen TV through someone's window but for myself I have a 20" Emerson with a crooked screen.

Please know :wtf: you're talking about before you come here trying to represent Americans and their "*huge* amounts of disposable income", okay?

[Kolesar]

9. Can fund a photovoltaic system for the cost of a kitchen remodeling

That should perk up some interest for the busy-bee nest builders who want to spruce up the old domicile next year. Pre-paid electricity! Everybody's doing it. Even people of modest means will remodel their kitchens at intervals: that is a project that typically costs in the five figures, $US.

If that does not impress you, consider other sectors of spending for entertainment. How about Hollywood? A significant portion of California's economy is based on movies and music. I don't know the gross size of the entertainment industry, but when a movie grosses hundreds of millions of dollars, that tells me that Americans have oodles of discretionary income.

What about Vegas? The town you cite hasn't any industry save for tourism. A whole town built on blackjack, Cirque du' Soliel, and lap dances. Flights and hotel rooms. Billions of dollars. Busses to the South Rim. Amazing!

Consumer electronics. TVs that cost several grand. A hundred bucks a month for internet and cable. Fifty bucks a month for a phone. Tens of millions of households pay that. We are a rich country. There is money in our discretionary budgets.

[phantom power]

11. Except that hardly any of these people can really afford their kitchen remodels.

You've been following the mortgage industry meltdown, right? The whole meat of the story is massive spending based on vapor "equity" in their homes produced by the housing bubble. It was never real money to begin with.

Now, I suppose you could make an argument that if you are going to take out a home loan (with bogus equity or otherwise) it's "preferable" to at least spend it on something that will reduce your utility bills. But they can't actually afford their remodels and their toys, and likewise they can't actually afford a PV installation.

[losthills]

12. But everyone can afford a 25 billion dollar reactor.

And everyone can afford to have the entire front range of the Rockies torn up to provide uranium for it.

And everyone can afford to leave tons of radioactive waste behind for future generations to deal with.

Right?

[phantom power]

13. The short answer is "yes, that's right."

you've read my various versions of the long answer many times, so I'd just be repeating myself for no purpose.

What reactor costs "25 billion?" The most expensive reactor price tag I've ever read about was 7 billion. And whether or not we need to mine uranium from the Rockies, there is not need to "have the entire front range" torn up for a fuel with twenty thousand times the energy density of coal. Not like we're []literally tearing up the Appalachians for coal. And yes, I know you don't approve of coal. I'm just pointing out that the environmental impact of mining uranium isn't even in the same ballpark as coal mining, because the amount of uranium needed per unit of energy produced is so damned much smaller than for coal.

[losthills]

16. I understand your position.

Mine is that, if we make nuclear power thae cornerstone of our energy supply, we'll have to build thousands of reactors, costing many billions of dollars. The easy, convenient uranium ore is already running out. Powering all those new reactors would mean uranium mining on a scale with the coal mining we see today, which we both agree should be stopped.

If every billion earmarked for building new reactors was spent on wind and solar installations, it would be money better spent. I know that you don't think it pencils out. I don't think that nuclear power pencils out environmentally, because it's powered by a finite resource that is obtained by environmentally destructive mining.

We have a serious problem that is not going to be solved easily. But problem solving is what Americans have always been good at. No?

[Nederland]

17. People who are bad at math

Powering all those new reactors would mean uranium mining on a scale with the coal mining we see today...

Once again we see an example of people that are completely incapable of understanding what it means to say that uranium has twenty thousands times the energy density of coal...

[struggle4progress]

20. But one produces about 22 tons of waste rock and mill tailings per kg of U-fuel

which makes your "twenty thousands times" sound somewhat less impressive

[Nederland]

26. 22 tons?

Does that actually sound like a lot to you?

[losthills]

29. Per Kilogram....

That doesn't sound like a lot to you????

[GliderGuider]

33. And with 55 million kg of uranium being mined annually world-wide

That gives over a billion tonnes of tailings and other rock waste a year world wide. Is that a lot?

At 2 tonnes/cubic meter that's about half a cubic kilometer of waste a year. In contrast, the world uses about 5 cubic kilometers of oil a year. In one case we get one billion tonnes of tailings, in the other case we get twelve billion tonnes of carbon dioxide...

On an energy equivalent basis, we get 3 tonnes of CO2 waste per tonne of oil, or 1.6 tonnes of rock waste per "tonne of oil equivalent" from uranium. Which is worse? We report, you decide.

[losthills]

34. You're back to the "Coal vs. Nuclear" tradeoff

that most people in this group have rejected as a false choice.

[Nederland]

36. You introduced the comparison

In post #16.

[GliderGuider]

37. Not really. First off, I was talking about oil. However...

The real point of my post was that every large-scale energy technology has costs and benefits. If you want to run a civilization on large amounts of concentrated energy, then choosing between competing technologies should require a cost-benefit analysis. Different people define costs and benefits differently, and every energy technology comes with a mix of different costs and benefits. So it comes down in many cases to value judgments, which are never simple and rarely fully rational.

My position is simple: whatever you guys decide to do is fine with me, because we're at the point where the outcome of these bun-fights will make scant difference indeed. After you've driven off the cliff is the wrong time to be arguing over whether you should have brought the Caddy instead of the Lexus.

Or as someone else said, it's like two frogs in a pot arguing over whether gas or electric stoves are better.

[TheWraith]

41. Because most people in this group refuse to accept the practical reality of energy demands.

And because they buy into the hype that they've been sold about how wind and solar power will save the world. Hey, let's wait another thirty or forty years. After all, they already generate a whole 0.5% of our energy. Maybe by the time our cities are sinking into the ocean, we can have a full 1% of our energy be spiritually pure. In the mean time, let's keep burning gigatons of coal.

Fossil fuels and nuclear are the only two proven technologies which can fully supply our energy demands. Given that choice, I'm going to go with the one that isn't killing the planet.

[Bread and Circus]

51. pffft....

Because most people in this group refuse to accept the practical reality of energy demands.

> not true

And because they buy into the hype that they've been sold about how wind and solar power will save the world.

> gross misrepresentation of our position.

Hey, let's wait another thirty or forty years.

> as if we haven't had nuclear energy for 40+ years already, and it hasn't solved our demands. Basically, nuclear has already has had its chance, and it failed. :eyes:

After all, they already generate a whole 0.5% of our energy.

> Renewables in the US combined account for more energy than nuclear. Please go back and read the literature.

Maybe by the time our cities are sinking into the ocean, we can have a full 1% of our energy be spiritually pure.

> Another inflammatory and exaggerated statement that puts words and motives in the mouths of those who oppose a pan-nuclear future.

In the mean time, let's keep burning gigatons of coal.

> another lie by association, by perversely equating renewable energies with coal, when in fact nuclear energy (being a mineable and a deplete-able) has more in common with it.

Fossil fuels and nuclear are the only two proven technologies which can fully supply our energy demands.

> again, nuclear energy has had full governmental and corporate backing for 40+ years, and it hits 5 to 6% of US demands, less than that of renewables combined (in the US).

Given that choice, I'm going to go with the one that isn't killing the planet.

> Earth, whether poisoned or not, will go on. However, I do know that Chernobyl poisoned and destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of people. But who are you going to believe, impartial NGO's or the former Soviet Union!

:eyes:

[TheWraith]

54. I really don't know what to say here.

"> gross misrepresentation of our position."

Then run the math. Go ahead, I'll wait. No matter how generous you make the numbers, solar power never works out.

"> as if we haven't had nuclear energy for 40+ years already, and it hasn't solved our demands. Basically, nuclear has already has had its chance, and it failed."

Let's see; solar power over the course of 50 years with no opposition produces 0.1% of our energy, and it's the future. Nuclear, with 15 years from inception to the time when the anti-nuclear industry went into full business, picks up 20% of the slack, and it's a failure?

"Renewables in the US combined account for more energy than nuclear."

No, they don't. Not even close. Nuclear is 20% of the country's power supply. Hydro is 12%, wind is 0.4%, and solar is 0.1%. Not that I expect you to acknowlege the facts. It's readily available via a Google search, and yet you accuse me of propagating myths.

"Another inflammatory and exaggerated statement that puts words and motives in the mouths of those who oppose a pan-nuclear future."

Because it's not like you ever do that, right? I mean God knows, everybody who doesn't irrationally fear nuclear power LOVES Chernobyl. Never a mention of the fact that more people are killed than by Chernobyl every five weeks in the United States alone from fossil fuel pollution.

"again, nuclear energy has had full governmental and corporate backing for 40+ years, and it hits 5 to 6% of US demands, less than that of renewables combined (in the US)."

You're not looking to the facts at all, are you? It's 20%. Not 6%, either in the US or globally.

"Earth, whether poisoned or not, will go on. However, I do know that Chernobyl poisoned and destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of people. But who are you going to believe, impartial NGO's or the former Soviet Union!"

I'm going to believe the NGOs, who placed the total number of people whose deaths were accelerated by Chernobyl at 4,000. Oh wait, did I just bust a myth for you? It's called the Chernobyl Forum: the WHO, half a dozen governments, IAEA, and a bunch of other UN and NGO groups.

Like it says in the title, I don't know what to say. I can provide all the information in the world, but if you're not willing to listen, it's all for nothing. You don't apprecciate that you're repeating falsehoods.

[bananas]

45. To scale up nuclear, that tonnage and km^3 goes up several orders of magnitude

You're comparing rich high-grade ore mined to provide only 6% of our energy,
scale up that tonnage for both a larger percentage of energy and for low-grade ores,
and the tonnage and cubic kilometers are orders of magnitude higher.

[bananas]

30. BWAHAHAHA!!!

There are so many math errors in the OP - but the pro-nukes swallowed it hook, line and sinker - because they are bad at math.

And when you talk about mining: sorry, uranium ore does not have twenty thousands times the energy density of coal - your math is off by several orders of magnitude.

Once again we see an example of pro-nukes who can't do math ...

BWAHAHAHA!!!

What a joke!

[Nederland]

35. Nobody claimed it did

But again, do the math and you'll see that nuclear does not even remotely have the environmental impact of coal or oil.

[bananas]

44. I've done the math - losthills is absolutely correct

Here's the World Nuclear Association talking about rich high-grade uranium ore - to scale up nuclear, you have to use low-grade ore, multiply these numbers by a factor of ten or more and you're on the same scale as coal mining:

"The difference in the heat value of uranium compared with coal and other fuels is important (though both are used at about 33% thermal efficiency in the power station). A one million kilowatt (1,000 MWe) power station* consumes about 3.1 million tonnes of black coal each year, or about 24 tonnes of uranium (as UO2) enriched to about 4% of the useful isotope (U-235). This requires the mining of over 200 tonnes of natural uranium which may be recovered from, say, 25-100,000 tonnes of typical uranium ore."
http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/whyu.htm

[NickB79]

38. I didn't know the University of Berkley liked to joke around that much

http://astro.berkeley.edu/~wright/fuel_energy.html

Coal: 29 GJ/ton

Uranium oxide: 470,000 GJ/ton

Uranium metal: 560,000 GJ/ton

So, the energy density of uranium metal is 19,000 times that of coal, while the energy density of uranium oxide is "only" 16,000 times that of coal.

Of course, you moved the goalposts by stating uranium ore, while everyone else here was discussing refined uranium.

[bananas]

43. Nope - Nederland's snarky comment was a reply to post #16 about mining

From post #16 by losthills:

"The easy, convenient uranium ore is already running out. Powering all those new reactors would mean uranium mining on a scale with the coal mining we see today"

And losthills is absolutely correct.

Edit to add: seems like Nederland was moving the goalposts - not me.

[NickB79]

46. Last I checked, we don't feed raw uranium ore into reactors

I don't know what kind of reactors you think we want to build......

[hunter]

18. Poor people don't build nuclear reactors. They don't have any money.

But the odds of them being able to purchase a small fraction of the electricity produced by a nuclear reactor are quite a bit better than them getting any electricity at all from some wealthy person's roof.

The amount of surplus electricity generated by home solar systems is negligible. People who have solar electric power systems on their roofs tend to use all the kilowatt hours they produce. Sometimes their meters "runs backward" but over the course of a year they run mostly forward.

If a home solar electric system is not connected to the grid, then clearly nobody else is going to get any surplus power generated.

[kestrel91316]

14. That's TWICE now you have forgotten to mention "dangerous fossil fuels"

in your post. And you also forgot to call any of us illiterate.

A little tired, perhaps?

[NMDemDist2]

15. I can only speak from my experience

the ex and I built a home in the Central Valley of california

we had 8 solar panels on the roof, 500 sf of copper tubing under a tile floor, a 200 gallon holding tank in the garage, a radiator in the woodstove and 12 ceiling fans

we bought (but never installed) 10 ton of electric heating and a/c units for the 3003 sf home. the solar heated water and wood stove heated the whole house all winter. in the hot summers, we'd reverse the system and the cool tiles and fans kept the house cool in 100+ degree summers.

we didn't install an electrical system, but I wish we had....

what the panels *DID* do was save all the power we would have normally used to heat and cool a large home and the power needed to heat hot water for 5 people.

our electrical bills in 1985-1988 (when I left) averaged less than $25 a month. for 3003 square feet and five people. I think the solar system made a pretty big difference.

[jpak]

19. Fuzzy math nonsense brought to you by the NEI

Those 5109 applications were for systems ranging from 2 kW to 2 MW in size.

A 2 kW PV system costs <$16 K before rebates - not $62 K.

nice try though

and the title of the OP was correct and accurate...

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[losthills]

22. You'll never deal with the realities of nuclear power:

That Uranium is a finite resource.

That Uranium mining is environmentally destructive.

That the cost of building enough reactors to make a dent in global warming would bankrupt every country on earth.

That nuclear reactors are used to enrich plutonium for weapons systems.

That there is no plan for containing nuclear waste for the life of it's extreme toxicity.

That nuclear power reactors leak radiation that has measurable health effects on populations living downwind.

That Uranium mining sickens and kills human communities and wildlife communities, poisons aquifers, and leaves radioactive waste behind.

That we're already running out of real uranium ore, and the new mining techniques to extract the crumbs are even worse than the old ones.

You can't address these issues, and won't, except to direct four letter expletives at anyone who raises them, and claim that you are the only intelligent and educated person in the group. You're not.

But go ahead and continue ranting. It has a certain kind of entertainment value, like Jerry Springer or Nascar...

[TheWraith]

27. Nonsense. You really should fact check this stuff before you repeat it.

"That Uranium is a finite resource."

In the sense that air is finite, yes. But not finite enough that we're going to run out, at least not within the next several hundred years. If you include uranium from the oceans, that figure becomes several thousand years.

"That Uranium mining is environmentally destructive."

Which is why the Japanese have developed a way to produce uranium simply by dragging specially made filters through seawater. It's really quite impressive, actually.

"That the cost of building enough reactors to make a dent in global warming would bankrupt every country on earth."

Nonsense. To replace all US energy needs would cost $300 billion. To replace all electrical needs for the entire planet would cost that same amount per year for about 6 years and 8 months. That's not impossible at all. Figuring the average cost of a new reactor at $1.4 billion, times 220 reactors we'd need in the US: $308 billion, spread over the 3-5 years of construction. Figuring at 1700 gigawatts of power needed globally (average electrical consumption of the world in 2001), minus the 272 gigawatts already supplied by nuclear power, you'd be paying about $2 trillion to replace all other forms of power. That's less than three quarters of the yearly budget for the United States government. Bankrupt? Not even close. Even if you expanded it to account for ALL use of energy by the human race--electrical, fossil fuels, wind, sun, everything--you're talking $21 trillion. That's about half of one year's gross planetary product, or 5% per year for ten years.

"That nuclear reactors are used to enrich plutonium for weapons systems."

Actually, to produce plutonium with an ordinary reactor would be ridiculously difficult and expensive. Uranium enrichment would be far easier, and does not require nuclear power.

"That there is no plan for containing nuclear waste for the life of it's extreme toxicity."

On the contrary, there are several excellent plans including fuel recycling, the industrial use of byproduct isotopes (medical uses, for instance) and let the rest rot. Despite all the hype, radioactivity is rather like a wildfire: it can be intense, or long lived, but not both. The longer-term isotopes are the least dangerous ones.

"That nuclear power reactors leak radiation that has measurable health effects on populations living downwind."

So do coal power plants. Except they're designed to leak: not once or twice in their useful life, but continuously. 40,000 to 70,000 people a year are killed by air pollution in the United States alone. To date, there have been no recorded deaths from civilian nuclear power in the US.

[losthills]

28. Yawn............

If there's a "fact" in your post, I can't find it.

I hope you're not starting to believe your own propaganda. That would be brain death....

Let the radioactive waste rot? Uranium from seawater? Reactors are not used to produce weapons grade plutonium? Do you know why we are paying North Korea to shut down their nuclear power plant? Have you ever heard of Yucca mountain? Have you read the studies that show cancer mortality downwind of American nuclear power plants? Do you know what happened to the Navajo Nation when uranium was discovered on their land?

But thanks for leaving out the four letter words....

[TheWraith]

39. I'm glad to see you can't actually refute my statements.

"Let the radioactive waste rot?"

Yes. Most of its energy will die off in less than 30 years.

"Uranium from seawater?"

Yep. There's a page about it (in semi-English) here:

http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/mirai-en/4_5.html

They're currently working on the cost of retrival this way--currently, they can only get it as low as about 25,000 yen per kilogram of uranium retrieved, which is just shy of US$100 per pound. That's a bit more than mined uranium costs at the moment, though still quite practical. They think they can eventually bring it down to around $60 per pound via improvements in the size and reusability of the filter material.

It's quite impressive, really, since there's something like 4.5 gigatons of uranium floating around dissolved in the oceans, a thousand fold what can be retrieved by mining, or thereabouts. I understand that the filters can also be used to harvest other valuable heavy metals like titanium and cobalt, as well.

"Reactors are not used to produce weapons grade plutonium?"

Actually, what I said is that use of conventional reactors to produce plutonium is difficult and expensive, and it's far easier for a state seeking nuclear weapons to enrich uranium instead, which does not require having a reactor. Also, modern light-water reactors produce far less plutonium than the heavy-water designs typically used for plutonium production.

"Do you know why we are paying North Korea to shut down their nuclear power plant?"

Actually, our concern nowadays is their uranium enrichment plant. The plutonium battle was lost a long time ago. Due, I'll note, to heavy water reactors.

"Have you ever heard of Yucca mountain?"

Of course. Point? Or are you just acting like it's a magic talisman?

"Have you read the studies that show cancer mortality downwind of American nuclear power plants?"

I've seen a lot of hysterical claims on the subject, but the only reliable data from independent organizations that I've seen says that the only major radiation-attributable downwind cancer spikes derive from atmospheric nuclear testing sites. I've also seen information vis a vis levels of radioisotopes in people living downwind of nuclear plants, but the numbers are invariably in the picocurie range.

I've also seen the documentation on the tens of thousands of people who are killed every year by atmospheric pollution from coal and oil-based energies.

"Do you know what happened to the Navajo Nation when uranium was discovered on their land?"

Yes, I do. I also know it's not an isolated incident--radiological safety, particularly under DOD auspices, was ridiculously bad in the 50s through the early 70s, in part because they didn't appreciate the importance of safety and cleanup. Of course, I also know about the mountaintop removal mining that's still going on right now in parts of this country to obtain coal to burn, and the long history of oil spills. You don't need to have uranium involved to have an ecological disaster.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bananas]

31. BWAHAHAHA!!!! Your math is so far off it's hilarious!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[jpak]

32. Just pointing out how wrong you were

Math lesson # 1

Brazillion is not a number.